Spring 1 Week 1

Happy New Year! I all hope you had a lovely and enjoyable Christmas. Just wanted to say thank you for all the gifts and love that Y4 gave at then end of term. It was really appreciated! I hope that the Secret Santa’s where happy with what they received and they are still secret!

What a start to 2019! This week we hit the road and started our Year 4 Road Trip to the USA! The children couldn’t wait to start the week off which we did with our passports in hand, departure gate checked and off we went.

To learn about the 12 major cities in America we had to fly to different states to find out information about each one. Each departure gate had a map showing what state the city was in and then the children had to work out the missing facts and stamp them into their very own passport and fly to the next city. The only problem was… they didn’t know where the departure gate was for each state. So the children had to fly all over America to find the information needed. The children loved this and it was great to see them all so engaged learning about something new.

In English this week, we have looked at our new spelling rule; adding ‘ation’ to verbs turns them in to nouns. When the word ends in ‘e’ – remove e and + ‘ation’. When the word ends in ‘y’ – remove y and + ‘ic’ + ‘ation’ (multiply to multiplication). Most other words you can just add ‘ation’ straight on the end. Can the children remember the actions?

We started learning about new vocabulary through poetry. We read the poem Overheard on a Salt-marsh.We understood the definitions of words such as: salt-marsh, howl, reeds and lagoon. The poem is about two characters, a Nymph and a Goblin. The Nymph has a set of green glass beads and the Goblin is very envious of this and wants them. We started by just reading the poem which was quite boring to stat with but then…. looked at what the mythical creatures were, how the characters would speak , how they might move and what they might look like. Then the poem really came alive…

In Maths this week, we have been looking at different mental fluency challenges and already the children have been improving. I am super impressed. Well done to everyone. We have started looking at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division word problems and showing them on a bar model. By looking for the start, change or product we were able to work out what the equation was. Next week, we will be looking at multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100; where the numbers move and not the decimal point.

We were also lucky enough to have mindful minute done by William and Luisa this week. In their own time, they create a lovely Power Point with some beautiful words.

In Science this week, we have continued our sound topic. The children have been investigating how sound is made and what pitch has to do with it.

Just wanted to also say that the hand-writing this week has been absolutely brilliant! Keep it up Year 4!